Suchergebnisse

The author first defines the various facets of globalization in today's world, emphasizing the key changes that are intensifying communication among peoples, nations, & cultures all over the world. However, parallel to this, there are other pressing problems: from the ecological crisis, to the realization of human rights, to the anomie of life & work. All this proves that globalization is not only an economic & technical but, ultimately, practically an ethical & political issue. Along the lines of Hegel's philosophy of world history & Aristotle's practical philosophy, the author has come to view contemporary globalization as a step forward for world civilization, ie, as a possibility for the realization of freedom & a good life. Globalization, of course, scares people with its unpredictability & the erratic development of "global society," which (in line with Beck's distinction between the First & the Second Modernism) today is represented as a society of nation-states, on the one hand, & a "global society of transnational actors," on the other. Due to the increasing globalization & the danger of reducing all beings to things, it is central to point out that a human being is not a thing among other things, & that the appreciation & realization of life requires nurturing & cultivating the variety of human knowledge pertinent to different spheres of the historical world of life. Thus, the relevance & the role of practical philosophy is gaining significance regarding the -- to the historical Being -- proper understanding & fulfillment of human potentials in today's world. Adapted from the source document.

Contemporary states are undergoing a process of rapid transformation that encumbers their functioning & sustains their state of crisis. Their external sovereignty is undoubtedly on the wane, in relation to both global economic actors & transnational & supranational political structures. Internally, the hierarchical functioning of government has been called into question. Although the state's share in the social product is constantly increasing, so are the demands for the state's support & regulation in various areas, resulting in a permanent fiscal crisis of the state. The author claims that the contemporary metamorphoses of the state & the prospects for its development can be understood solely by analyzing the changes in contemporary society. The industrial society, even the "service society" (Dahrendorf), is being transformed into an information & communication society, in which the key processes are the production & distribution of knowledge, while the central power resources are mechanisms of the monopolization of knowledge. The information & communication media play the central role in social & political processes. The new increase of social inequality has intensified the tendency of social desolidarization. The new level of social dynamics, mobility, complexity, & contingency requires a new type of state. The author calls it the "cooperative state" -- the state that provides for the production of essential collective goods in the cooperative process of negotiation & bargaining, in which a plethora of social actors take part. 25 References. Adapted from the source document.

The author holds that the constitutional theory today is put to the test in three areas. The first is the problem of the relationship between transnational regimes & government institutions. Constitutional/legal theory is faced with the question how the norms concerning transnational regimes can acquire the dignity of legal norms via "constitutionalization." The second challenge is posed by transnational regimes sui generis such as the EU's legal system. The third concerns the process of EU's expansion. For the author, a constitution is both an instrument & a symbol; ie, it is doubly coded. On the one hand, it leans on practice & instrumental implementation, & on the other on the world of representation. There are different types of constitutions. Type one are manifests, largely solely symbolically coded. Type two are the constitutions in the form of contracts, structured more in the form of a legal relationship between discrete actors than a monolithic symbolic corpus. Type three are programmatic or planned constitutions, & they are associated with the rise & fall of socialist societies. They identify the already politically defined developmental goals. And finally, there are the so-called constitutions-cum-laws. These are a result of a regular legislative process that enables people in the capacity of presumed agents of sovereignty to debate constitutions & accept them. The author's opinion is that the transition of Central- & East-European countries is a transition from the simple-coded with the primacy of the symbolic to the double-coded constitutions. This transition is not smooth. The first difficulty lies in "transplanting" constitutional solutions to different social/historical contexts. The second relates to the anticonstitutional mentality that prevails in these societies. Despite everything, the constitutional balance in Central & Eastern Europe is satisfactory on the whole. The constitutions of these countries are interesting because of three symbolic aspects. The first refers to the constitution formation processes in which these societies ceased to be objects of authoritarian rulers. The second aspect regards the search for new forms of identity & unity. The third aspect refers to the attempts to banish tyranny from politics & social life by means of legal chains. 35 References. Z. Dubiel